Bits and pieces of Kuik Shiao Yin, co-founder of The Thought Collective

Shiao-Yin co-leads The Thought Collective together with fellow co-founder/directors Tong Yee and Elizabeth Kon. School of Thought drives innovation in civic learning to nurture generations of thought leaders.

Information of the co-founder

Shiao-Yin believes that Singapore has been blessed to be a blessing. She loves helping people live their dreams to do good through the marketplace. She mentors young social entrepreneurs and often shares her perspectives on entrepreneurship and innovation through various one-on-one sessions, business competitions, workshops and seminars. Currently, she and her team are working with NGOs, corporations and government agencies to co-create new avenues to enable Singapore to become the Silicon Valley for social innovation.

Shiao-Yin’s Views

From the start, they have always seen SOT as more than a tuition centre. We hope to be more like an R&D unit for socially responsible education, dedicated to rethinking and reworking the way we (and others) teach and learn about the world.

Every year, we work at refining our existing teaching strategies as well as experimenting with new mediums and avenues of civic education. From School of Thought, we created a current affairs magazine publishing arm (Think Tank Publishing), a learning journeys company (Thinkscape) and a socially conscious restaurant business (Food For Thought). Our four businesses are known informally as The Thought Collective. Each business expresses a different aspect of our multi-disciplinary approach to education - and more importantly, it puts our classroom talk to the test in the real world before a real audience.

What they had been doing

At the heart of all our national and global problems lies the long-term problem of apathy. You cannot hope to solve anything as long as not enough people know or care.

As teachers, the group had seen too many young Singaporeans emerge out of the school system jaded, knowing and caring only as much as the exams required them to know and care about. They were troubled to see the indifference many Singaporeans showed not only towards Singapore itself but to the world and Life in general. It was not too hard to imagine how these youths would grow up to be unhappy and disenchanted adults, pessimistic about their ability to change their circumstances.

Since 2002, They have been refining a socially responsible tuition programme that would meet young Singaporeans' needs on both the practical and idealistic fronts. They show students how to work realistically towards better exam grades while scaffolding for them a better way of thinking and caring about the world's affairs. They also share with them the possibilities and opportunities available for anyone to make a difference. They believe good education should be available for all: any student with severe financial difficulties can apply for School of Thought's in-house Financial Aid Scheme.

Information and history of The Thought Collective

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/photos/singapore-9-social-enterprise-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fsingapore-9-social-enterprise-slideshow%252Fkuik-shiao-yin-photo-1342771938.html

http://www.school-of-thought.com/sot/subpage.php?p=aboutus

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